The Gluttons

I personally think Dante's portayal of the Glutton's punishment is somewhat harsh, but at the same time, true of who the souls actually are. This circle of Hell has great use of diction to convey to the reader the sense of being there. The lines, "Huge hailstones, dirty water, and black snow/pour from the dismal air to putrefy/the putrid slush that waits for them below," (45) put a picture in the mind that this place is truly one of filth and inclimate weather. The diction has a sense of a "cold" feeling from the words chosen such as hailstones, black snow, and purtid slush. The use of the element of "cold" is probably used to show the opposite of what the Gluttons felt in life. In life, from eating food and drinking, they had a feeling of being happy and warm. However, in death, their souls are eternally cold. The Gluttons are also portrayed as swollen and obscene in death, just as they were in life. 


The souls damned to this place are here, because they had made no use of God's gifts, and instead, only wasted and wallowed in food and drink. To be gluttonous, is to be indulging in excess of something; which is considered a sin. They prouduced nothing but garbage and had a warm feeling from the food they ate in life, so the contrapasso is that they have to lie in eternity in the "garbage" they once were producing as well as being soul-shattering cold. When Dante recongnizes Ciacco in this circle, Ciacco says, "gluttony was my offense, and for it/ I lie here rotting like a swollen log," (46) which shows the contrapasso that in life he was swollen with gluttony and because of it he is swollen and rotting in death. Not only do the tortured souls have to lie in the putrid slush in the cold, but the three-headed Hell dog, Cerberus, slavers over them as the they did in life over food. He also rips apart any foolish soul who tries to get up out of the rotting slush.